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Friday, November 24, 2017

Clay Ringold was really Ray Hogan, and if you’ve read any of
Hogan’s numerous Western novels published as Ace Doubles, you know what to
expect from his work: a short, tough-minded, fast-paced action Western yarn,
told in a terse, very effective style.

That’s certainly the case with THE NIGHT HELL’S CORNERS DIED, published under
the Ringold name in 1972. This one is even tighter than usual, as Hogan
compresses all the action into a single 12-hour span. The plot is simple: the
respectable businessmen in the former trail town of Hell’s Corners decide it’s
time to clean up the lawless element in the settlement, so they hire a
town-taming marshal. But he proves not to be up to the job as the outlaws and
the crooked saloon owner whose establishment is their headquarters all fight
back. When the bad guys go on a rampage that threatens to destroy the town,
local ranch hand and former gunfighter Cord Munger, who has put his violent
ways behind him for the most part, winds up being the only chance for Hell’s
Corners to survive.

This is pretty standard stuff, but Hogan puts a nice spin on it by having
Munger be more of an anti-hero than a hero. He’s almost as unsympathetic as the
villains and would gladly ride off and let the outlaws run roughshod over the
town, if not for a young orphan with whom Munger feels a certain kinship,
having been raised in an orphanage himself. Once Munger does decide to take a
hand, his plan to battle a much superior force by himself is pretty clever.

Ray Hogan was never a ground-breaking Western writer, but he’s also never let
me down. His books are always entertaining. I really enjoyed THE NIGHT HELL’S
CORNERS DIED, and if you’re a fan of traditional Westerns, it’s well worth
reading.

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Thank-you for the fine review, James. While in my early teens, I devoured Ray Hogan's Double D westerns which I checked out from the library. Somehow, I missed the fact that he also wrote under the name of Clay Ringold. Thanks to the review, I now know that there are several Ray Hogan "Ringold" westerns that I have not read. I'm headin' out for the nearest used book store!